Carbon Cycling: Researchers Use Microbes to Determine Vital Role of Oceans

Oregon State University researchers use a novel approach to shed new light on the vital role of the ocean in carbon cycling. The new approach tracks microbes that consume various forms of organic carbon produced by phytoplankton species.

The recent research is vital to forecasting the amount of carbon that will leave the world's ocean for the atmosphere, like greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, and how much will eventually end up entombed in marine sediments.

Carbon Cycle Explained

The carbon cycle, according to the National Ocean Service, is the natural way of recycling carbon atoms. Carbon is the foundation upon which all forms of life on the planet are based and required to form further complex molecules. It can also be found in the planet's atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Carbon helps regulate the planet's temperature and makes it possible for life to continue as food, sustenance, and a major source of energy.

Carbon cycling, therefore, describes the natural process where carbon atoms continually travel from the planet's atmosphere to the lithosphere and back. Since Earth's atmosphere forms a closed environment, the amount of carbon atoms in the system does not change.

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Phytoplankton Tracking Sheds Light on the Ocean's Role in Carbon Cycling

A study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled "Phytoplankton exudates and lysates support distinct microbial consortia with specialized metabolic and ecophysiological traits," found out that various microbe species in the world's oceans are particular yet predictable in the food sources that they prefer to eat, according to Brandon Kieft the first author and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia.

Phytoplanktons are microscopic plant organisms at the base of the world's ocean food chains. They are a key component of critical biological carbon pumps. Most float aimlessly in the upper sections of the ocean, where they are easily reached by sunlight.

These microscopic plants make their food and have a tremendous effect on the amount of carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere by sucking the molecules during photosynthesis. Phytoplankton has become a natural sink, a primary way for CO2, the most abundant greenhouse gas, to be removed from the planet's atmosphere. Since the beginning of the industrial age, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by up to 40%, heavily contributing to the continued warming of the planet.

Researchers say that they are analyzing the heterotrophic microbes or consumers of organic material. Both groups are microbes that primarily consume organic carbon as their food source, and the other fixes their organic carbon.

Kief explains that the recent findings have a vital implication in further understanding how marine microbes such as phytoplankton and photosynthetic algae function in unison to impact global carbon cycling and how the ocean food web may respond to the incessant environmental change helping researchers predict the amount of carbon going back into the planet's atmosphere and the amount that will inevitably be buried in marine sediments for years to come.